By Jon Akre

605 Sports

“Moke is a great pitcher, he actually pitched against us two years ago when they picked him up at Mount Vernon,” said Vanhove. “He pitched great against us then, and he pitched great against us today. We knew it was going to be tough with him and we were glad to get a couple runs across the board.”

The Blue Jays had an ace of their own dealing on the mound in former Wichita State University pitcher Aaron LaBrie, who gave up just one run on three hits while striking out 10 batters in the win.

“He’s a stud, he’s always been not only a great player but a great teammate,” said Vanhove. “We love having him, he’s fun, he keeps it loose and he loves baseball.”

LaBrie has struggled at Cadwell in the past but over the years has learned how to calm the nerves and play his game.

“It’s still the same,” said LaBrie on his preparation. “Obviously it means more and everyone’s a little more jacked up, but just try to treat it as a game. We’ve been coming to the state tournament for a long time now, and my first year I got super hyped up for it and had a horrible outing so just try to treat it like any other game.”

LaBrie says the early offense from the Blue Jays helped him settle in and dominate into the middle and later innings.

“It’s hard to string together three hits as long as you don’t walk guys and my thing is I try not to walk anybody,” said LaBrie. “Once we got up three runs I knew it would take a couple innings for them to come back as long as I keep throwing strikes and not walk guys.”

But the one unearned run allowed by the Jays on a second inning error was the only scoring Corsica could produce.

In the seventh inning, Garretson was able to pull away, exploding for a four run inning to put the game out of reach.

“We have a lot of good hitters on our team, it’s been a rough season as far as we’re either pitching well and hitting poorly or hitting great and pitching poorly,” said LaBrie. “It was nice for it all to come together and click. If we can get all our guys to hit the way they can, we’re a really dangerous offensive lineup.”

The Blue Jays tacked on another run in the eighth to take an 8-1 lead, before LaBrie closed things out in the ninth.

Trey Buckneberg tallied three hits, a double, and two RBIs. Nick Bonte drove in two runs on two hits. Robin Chute tallied three hits, two doubles, and an RBI. Tayson Swatek drove in two runs, while Dustin Steckler tallied an RBI-single in the win.

For Corsica, Moke allowed seven runs on nine hits and two walks in 6.1 innings.

Ryan Buck, Brady Christoffels, and Caleb Crist each tallied hits in the loss.

Garretson moves on to play another Four Corners in the second round on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.

“We don’t know a ton about the Four Corners team,” said Vanhove. “But we know right now anyone can win any game so we’re going to have to play our best to beat them.”